Collaborative Knowledge Work: Theory and Practice of a Successful Commercial Application Thomas Gruber CTO, Intraspect Software How well do organizations think? How long does it take for new Does the left hand know what people to come up to speed? the right hand is doing? ❚ Does knowledge walk How do organizations out the door when communicate and coordinate someone leaves? their activities? ❚ How long does it take to How do organizations maintain find the right person for relationships as employees the task? change? © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Some Important Ideas ❚ Knowledge Capture and Reuse ❚ Corporate Memory ❚ Organizational Learning ❚ Virtual Communities ❚ B2B Collaboration across Value Chains © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Some Business Realities ❚ Rampant workforce turnover – need for organizational memory ❚ Scarcity of talent – need to find and leverage experts ❚ Pressure for fix-fee services – need to capture and reuse best practices ❚ Need for Speed: Outsource and Partner or Die – need for B2B knowledge communities © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. A Success Story for Collaboration and KM ❚ Intraspect was designed and built for collaborative knowledge management. ❚ It actually works. – People use it. ❚ It is a commercial success. – They pay for it. ❚ It is bringing new capabilities to mainstream business areas: – CRM, BI, PSA, HR, Supply Chain © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Some Intraspect Customers Web & System Integrators Marketing Services Financial Services Other Vertical Markets High Tech Telecom OK, ENOUGH MARKETING! WHAT DOES IT DO AND HOW DOES IT WORK? © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. The Challenge: ❚ How can technology foster organizational intelligence? How to create an environment where – people naturally build on each other’s work – a corporate memory is created and maintained – virtual communities emerge and thrive © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Existing Technical Approaches Don’t Solve the Problem Portals Point-to-point Email © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. The Solution: Memory Mediated Collaboration ❚ Shared Online Environment – Integrate All Information Sources ❚ Many-On-Many Collaboration – Not Just Teams and Rooms ❚ Community Knowledge Base – Build on Previous Work © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. How It Works: The Intraspect Group Memory discover keep informed contribute Intraspect disseminate Group Memory discuss re-use! share Email Files Web Notes Reports © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Collaborative Knowledge Work in Professional Services Capture & Distribute Interact with Best Practices Customers Generate Manage Proposals Deliverables Source Track and Hire Issues Ramp New Collaborate on Consultants Engagement Find Experts © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Enterprise Deployment on a Federation of Intraspect servers Professional Services Collaborative Portal Customer and Applications Services Partner Extranets Content Managers Management Engagement Teams Outsource Partners Customer Teams © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Product Functionality ❚ Collection, Linking, Organization ❚ Discussion and Commenting ❚ Document Management & Sharing ❚ Full-text & Metadata Search ❚ Universal Subscription ❚ Distribution over web and email ❚ Access Control & Security ❚ Customization and Personalization © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Example: Workspaces for Collaborative Engagements © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Information is always In Context © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Contribute directly to workspace from e-mail, browser or desktop Quickly find email addresses with LDAP integration Unique customized e-mail address Full text search of attachments © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Contribute directly from Microsoft Office 2000 or Windows Desktop WebDAV allows Intraspect presentation as web folders. © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Personalized information management space Personal workspaces and client accounts Navigation Bar Urgent User- Notifications controlled command bar Links to news and items of interest Tasks, events, etc. © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Search and you will find. © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Find important client information Templates to sort and analyze across accounts Review Adds a project project history workspace with just one click Links to live reports in other systems © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Subscribe to stay informed of relevant activity Notified on his Personal Page Notified by email © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Subscribe and be kept informed. © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Apply best practices to create a new project workspace Select project members; assign Apply access existing policies methodology Replicate vital project statistics w/ c-spaces © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Structured project spaces to run and manage the engagement Quick project overview with searchable metadata Project member Use pre- security formatted policies. methodologies or create new ones © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Custom Searches combine metadata and full-text query Search by document type and custom attributes © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. The Ontology of Context and Collaboration ❚ Context hierarchy with typed nodes – allow multiple parents, no inheritance ❚ Conversational relations – next-in-thread/in-reply-to – context-sensitive annotation ❚ Implicit metadata – contributor, date, content type ❚ Explicit metadata – titles and descriptions – user-defined types and attributes © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. How it works: the principles ❚ Design for organizational intelligence. ❚ Create a knowledge ecology. ❚ Motivate by enlightened self-interest. ❚ Support existing work practice. ❚ Collaboration is king. © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. 1. People are part of the killer app! What People do well What Machines do well ❚ Create lots of ❚ Remember lots of things to remember things ❚ Make sense of data ❚ Search large bodies of data and and information information ❚ Communicate to ❚ Deliver messages to solve problems large audiences ❚ What they are ❚ What they are told motivated to do to do © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. 2. An Ecology of Knowledge Reuse ❚ Capture knowledge at its source – get it while it’s hot! ❚ Capture knowledge in context – don’t dump and try to sort it later ❚ Grow the corporate memory as a product of people working on-line – corporate memory emerges © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. 3. Enlightened self-interest ❚ Make it easier to re-use than to reinvent. ❚ Make it easier to work together, on-line. ❚ Global benefit emerges from local action. and… ❚ The more people use it, the more valuable it is to everyone! © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. Not a Field of Dreams “If you build it, they will come.” “If they use it, it will build itself.” © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. 4. Support existing work practice ❚ Reach out to existing toolsets – email, web, desktop ❚ Support existing business processes – workflow and metadata for routine tasks ❚ Don’t turn knowledge workers into librarians! – don’t expect IT staff to do it, either. © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission. 5. Collaboration is King! ❚ Knowledge management is driven by collaborative work. – the source of knowledge creation – the context for knowledge reuse – the main reason to be working over the net ❚ KM without participation will fail. ❚ Collaboration in knowledge-based communities is the way we work in the new economy. © 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.